Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe—many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy’s original inventions.

A welcome read for anyone who ever felt more passion for a sandwich than is strictly speaking proper, Relish is a graphic novel for our time: it invites the reader to celebrate food as a connection to our bodies and a connection to the earth, rather than an enemy, a compulsion, or a consumer product.

Lucy Knisley was born in New York City, raised in Rhinebeck, NY, and educated in Chicago. She has come home to roost in a tiny apartment in Manhattan, where she can be closer to her mom’s cooking. Her comics about life, food, travel and her adventures have gained her a devoted audience on the Internet, and she is now doing food comics for the magazine Saveur, who just sent her to Africa. Lucy’s first book, French Milk, is a travelogue about a trip to Paris. Relish is her most recent work.